Evaluation of Archimedes Young Peoples Project, Derbyshire

Evaluation of Archimedes Young Peoples Project, Derbyshire.

36 week programme - September to July

Introduction

Archimedes worked in association with the Children’s Fund, Buxton Secondary Schools and a Secure Unit in Derbyshire.

The project was the First introduction of Forest Schools into Derbyshire. It was the desire of Archimedes to illustrate how the programme could influence children in secondary school, and as an early intervention programme support the emotional needs of he children in order for them to learn how the environment could effect their own feelings, thoughts and behaviours. The programme was a challenge to the education system to some extent, as nothing of this nature had been used in a school environment before, and in particular not with this particular cohort of young people with the presenting behaviours and the attention that would be given to the needs, known or unknown at this time by the educators with whom they worked in school.

Archimedes was supported by the Children’s Fund to run from September to July and young people were asked if they wanted to attend, through interview and discussion groups at the school and the Unit.

Those at the School were in the support unit and it was suggested that theprogramme would encouragement them, as in early intervention programme and identify issues relating to non- attendance, classroom behaviour and lack of learning motivations. It was seen as a progressive move in order to develop positive attitudes to school, before the important years of GCSE and to provide andopportunity to develop self-esteem, confidence and reduce the likelihood of exclusion through support ofemergent positive learning strategies and metacognitive processes.

The young people from the Unit were in a more stressful situation and had already been removed from their family situations, sometimes for their own safety, on child protection issues, but all due to behaviours and anti social, self excluding and risky activities such as absconding, self harm, or self abuse in other ways. These young people were supported by two adults each during the daytime and carefully monitored for safeguarding reasons during other times.

It was an interesting mix of children and we worked on a high adult profile and low group number mix in order to satisfy the ethos of value based relationships and in order to be able to attend to the unique and specialist needs of each child, as well as the group as a whole, while the outcomes of the project were fundamental to the provision and that was to increase self confidence though emotional awareness and regulation, aswell as to establish a more favorable attitude towards learning and the respect of self. What was key also that having a variety of adults around would ensure that where individualist personalities could rub each other up the wrong way, there was always an alternative person to support them. It was identified as common, due to the hyper vigilance of a couple of these young people could be quick to draw conclusions, usually perceived, but can cause confrontational issues.

The project was designed, delivered and evaluated through weekly monitoring and assessment planning by the two Level 3 Forest Schools Practitioners and two assistants. It was initially expected that the support workers who attended the children from the Unit would be present, but it became quickly evident that this was contributing to a felling of despair, lack of freedom to develop ideas and understanding it was curing conversations and reducing the peer relationship potential to be built between the participants and so these additional support staff were removed from the project within a three week span, through negotiation with the unit, the staff, our staff and the children. It was made fundamentally clear to the children that if their behaviours demonstrated the need, for safety reasons, theirs, ours as staff and the other group members then the support staff would be bought back to the sessions. This never happened, until the final celebration in the woods, organized by the children themselves.

Project outline

We used the school as a base for the children who were coming from there for a two-week introduction and separately a two-week session introduction at the Special Unit. Here we discussed the Adair version learning styles, multiple intelligences, worked with personal perceptions and carried out personality profiles and the children looked at the concept of learning and what they likes, and didn’t like and how they evaluated the successfulness of their relationships with peers and with significant adults. Whilst this was happening we were observing body language, eye contact, body positioning, tone of voice, language and linguistic development profiles. The young people took part in number of traditional team work exercises and we conducted a process of self reflective processes and also observed the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, linguistic stages of development cross referenced to the research and appropriate profiles one would expect from a child of their age.

All of these evaluation processes we correlated and we then used them for the following three weeks out in the woods, where we created new profiles based on being in this new and for some unfamiliar environment, with a new group of individuals, as the two groups, the one from the schools and the one from the Special Unit were now having to form a whole new group. It was interesting that the members of staff who had been allocated to do the initial reviews and meetings, became the trustworthy adult to that particular mall group in the first instance. It was a process of bonding and this had happened very quickly and became very evident as the groups met.

Our FS leaders used the information gathered in order to provide a safe environment, one that was stressful to the best of the organizational perspective, as it was acknowledged that the cortisol and adrenaline levels would be high for the first few weeks before normalization. This became evident as each person reacted in a semi – volatile manner in some situations, that another person who was not on hyper vigilance would not have reacted to. The levels of ………were recorded as high in the first few weeks from all the individuals within the group [. This enabled us to create a useful baseline assessment that meant that we could formulate very targeted outcomes for each individual, for each session, as well as the actual tasks and session plans that were put into place. Measurement through monitoring allowed the leaders to map development in all the areas of development and these were managed through theming the programme into six week sessions, that could be evaluated and progress feedback to the schools and Unit. We felt it was fundamental to the success for the programme for each young person that the school and other stakeholders were aware of the programme, what was happening and how the young person was responding.

Forest Schools has ever been designed as a separate entity that acts in isolation to the other areas of education of personal life and is something that is fully integrated as a way of working and being for the child. However in order for this to happen there needs to be a fully integrated model within the school and this will then encourage the young person to develop new strategies in school and at home. These need to be valued by all the stakeholders though. If it is just the Forest Schools Practitioners that support this way of working, then when returning to school, the personal development work will take longer to be assimilated by the individual and attributed value to the process could be diminished. The role of the school and parents is integral to the ongoing success of strategy development and social inclusion for this vulnerable group of children.

Project Aims

Our aims were to create new neural pathways, new ways of responding to difficult and potentially challenging situations; to build up resilience to adversity. These children had all been identified as having behaviours that meant that they could not remain in the social situation that they found themselves in due to the way they reacted to peers, significant adults or o the environment. We know that this is triggered by a belief or value that someone has regarding that situation and that this has been embedded in the body and brain of this individual. These young people were in a self-protection, fight or flight chemically induced process when things got tough, or they did not know how to respond to the problem, demands or expectations that was expected of them. The only way to support the individual at this point of becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the chemicals in the blood stream is to crate a new neural pathway that allow time and understanding to be sought and found. In this new process the individual will be able to function in a sociable acceptable manner and then will not be excluded because they are unable to control their behaviours. Self-awareness is the starting point for this process. Emotional Literacy starts with understanding self. Archimedes Forest Schools programme had one major objective, and that was to allow these young people to become self aware of the impacts that others and the environment was having on them, and equally how they were influencing others, and then to learn how to regulate their thoughts and behaviours in order to be able to remain in the social situation longer and not be excluded from it.

Project Development

The first few weeks were designed to collect data on which to make future decisions, discuss progress and plan for further enhancement or changes to the delivery. The starting point of the session was important and through this we were able to monitor and assess developments, assimilations, changes over the course of the transformational stage of the programme

We used the baseline assessment forms to collect information on learning, behaviours, attitudes to learning during sessions, emotional literacy, self confidence and social relationships.

Project outcomes

The outcomes for each individual are, of course different as the baseline assessments created from observations created very different key developmental pathways for each young person. There was a commonality however in certain big picture areassuch as awareness of the actions of self on others. Understanding of concentration levels and self-motivation to achieve. Acceptance that when things go wrong that there is a solution and its not a personal slight on self.

Over the course of the 36 week programme the following Outcomes were observed and recorded

Increased levels of confidence to start tasks
Increased incidents of asking for help when having a difficulty
Increased ability to carry out tasks that were perceived to be too difficult
Increased self awareness of how a particular individual was impacting on them emotionally and influencing their social behaviour
Increased ability to step away from a conflict before escalation
Increased ability to identify specific physical manifestations of emotions, such as rage, anger, disappointment, contentment and pride in achievement
Increased concentration levels in activities
Increase in appropriate conversational eye contact and body language
Increase in variety of food choices
Increased ability to accept positive comments regarding behaviours and outcomes
Increased ability to state feelings of satisfaction, pride and seeing value in own contribution
Increase in giving support to other peers and adults when having a difficulty
Increased contribution to preparation of site, session, day and packing up
Increase in communication complexity
Increase in verbal descriptions and sharing of feelings and thoughts
Increase in sharing of issues that were effecting their behaviours
Increase in understanding that their own behaviours can have both a positive and negative impact on others

Decreased incidents of disruptive behaviours when environment (social and environment) became personally intolerable
Decreased defensive angry tonality of voice when communicating
Decreased self directed abstinence from activity
Decreased incidents of intentional interruption or distraction to others working
Decrease in protestations at suggestions and advice from leaders
Decrease in self put downs
Decrease in protestations as to wearing ‘unfashionable’ warm and waterproof clothing

Conclusions

The individuals that formed the group were in the initial stages bought together in, for some, a strange and alien environment. The relationships with adults were one that for 100% of them was one that they expressed they had not experienced before. We worked in a professional manner, but the remit at the being was one of mutual respect and collaboration. We set out rules, all of which came form them as individuals, except where there were specific health and safety implications, such as tools use, fire lighting and cooking, tree felling and other higher risk activities.

We used a process of repetition and a maintained an agreed, but consistent way of working. This set appropriate boundaries, physical, verbal and emotional in place and these provided a dependable and reliable way of working. As the rules were constant, they were easy to remember, many becoming an unconscious way of working after only a few weeks. There was a progression in the activityofferings, and though there were no “activity” essentials, i.e. planned with expectation to participate without exception, there were suggestions and developments based on the development, the observed levels of commitment, self-awareness and self-regulation of each person. Each session was discussed, thought about, illustrated, demonstrated, recreated during and at the end as deemed appropriate, this always allowed for a verbalization or contribution to planning and preparation for the next week.

We observed a marked increase in empathy and mutual support given by the young people both between themselves, but also in offering help to the leaders also. This empathy went hand in hand with a development of social communication and more accommodating body language and other aspects of no verbal communication. We worked hard on introducing vocabulary, identifying and matching feelings with physical sensations. This was highlighted as the programme developed as an invaluable tool that they could use when beginning to be conscious and self aware of how the environment, peers or adults were impacting on chemical levels of stress, or adrenaline, or feelings of contentment. For us this was a major aim of the project, as we identified Emotional literacy and well being as focus points.

We encouraged self-care, and a process of developing an understanding of taking personal responsibility for actions and also consequences. Because boundaries are stable, it became common for any lax in adherence to be picked up by the young people and they would prompt and support best practice working processes.

Because the day always included a lunch session it allowed us to introduce the concepts of fire, responsibility to keep it alight and to collect resources. There was duly a transaction that occurred that the young people would choose who would be the fire lighter, the preparer, the health and safety supervisor and the fuel collectors for each session. We were able to work with water and how to boil it on the Kelly Kettle, pans and whistling kettles to understand how to transfer skills. Cooking of a range of foods were investigated and how to identify when foods were cooked how to plan the meals taking into consideration cooking times and fire requirements. There was a great interest in the food choices and the variety of food that was consumed and experimented increased substantially.

Two of the young people never or rarely ate any vegetables and only those for the residential unit ate fruit. They were introduced to food preparation and how to use a variety of cooking utensils. The whole of this process created fun, hilarity, wit, laughter and quite a few jokes knocking around through those social interactions, teamwork, fine motor skills, food hygiene and understanding of food storage requirements, or of course the milk would go off and there would be no tea!

In conclusion, it was a sad time when we worked towards the close of programme and we held a ceremony on the woods where parents, teachers, the school head and the residential workers all came to participate in an activity afternoon where the young people demonstrated their skills in Green Wood work and cooking. One of the great successes for one young man, was the un surpassed confidence he had gained in articulating and using his own voice. He chose to do the inaugural speech for the day, in front of a potentially intimidating group of adults, and one he confessed he would never have been able to deliver before he had come on the programme. He delivered with style, flair and humour and there was more than one tearful eye in the crowd, as we summed up, cleared up and said goodbye, everyone already integrating many of the new skills, knowledge and understanding in so many social, emotional areas of their lives. Our feedback sheets from parents, carers and from the school commented on the increase in levels of confidence and a decrease in the levels of antagonism and confrontational behaviours brought on from fear of failing or letting others down, as the young people themselves identified. On and Upwards!